Wednesday, August 20, 2008

The BoE agent survey points to a nasty year ahead.

Here is my second attempt at a slideshow. This time, we take a look at the most recent Bank of England agent survey.

The survey deserves much more attention that it currently gets. The regional agents ask firms about a range of issues; prices, investment, profitability and employment. The agents then compile these responses into a set of scores, which gives us perhaps the best insight into the future path of the UK economy.

The most recent survey is very grim; it clearly points to higher inflation, declining investment, lower sales and possibly a recession.

A quick word on the slideshow. If it is on autoplay there is no way to slow it down and slides disappear after about 4 seconds. If you want to slow it down, pass your mouse over the image, and a stop button will appear. Press on the button and view the slides manually. Alternatively, double click on the image, and you will be taken to the picassa webside where you will have the option to slow the slideshow down directly.

3 comments:

The Bank of England has twelve regional offices, or Agencies. Their main function is to provide economic intelligence to the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC)ahead of its interest rate decision.

The Agencies have around 8,000 contacts drawn from the business community. Each month they talk to around 700 contacts, or about 60 per Agency, with a cross-section of companies in terms of sector, location and size, in order to get a reasonably balanced view of the latest economic developments. The specific details of the individual meetings and companies are confidential; the Agencies report inferences about the broader economy based on their iscussions. The information has the advantage of being both timely and relevant to the current economic conjuncture. And because the Agents hold fairly lengthy discussions with their contacts, they can provide some real-world insight into recent developments. They also gather information on future prospects.

Each month, the Agents and Deputy Agents in each region review the information they have gathered oneconomic conditions, and take a view on whether conditions have changed to an extent that warrantschanging one of their scores. The individual judgements on what value to score are ultimately subjective ones, rather than being based on scientific models or methods. Instead, the scoresare a simple way of translating the information from Agents’ contacts into a quantitative assessment of the economy over time, as seen through the eyes of the Agents. Unlike data produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the whole sample of companies on which the scores are based changes each month. In addition, the scores are not based on a mechanical method for taking into account the business size of the Agents’ contacts, although the Agents do try to make the sample representative, and place moreweight on larger firms."

Many Homeowners and Real Estate Investors need help today.The Real Estate market or should I say the Economy in the U.S in general made a lot of Homeowners and Real Estate Investors really upset.Investors are loosing money and Homeowners are loosing their homes, and it all happen so fast we couldn’t even realize what happen to us.Many Real Estate Investors and specially Homeowners that are not in Real Estate to make money but just to have a home for their family got hurt and don’t know what to do and how to save them selves.So here is a great tip that hopefully will help you with your mortgage and your Real estate investment.

Hard Money Lenders and Private Money investors.

Hard Money Lenders and private investors will help you with your mortgage so you will loose your home or your investment for a higher interest rate.I get a lot of calls every day from investors and homeowners that are knowledgeable enough to call a hard money lender. But many of you that are not knowledgeable I just hope you’re reading this article, because I think it is your only way out today.Banks can’t qualify anybody anymore, it’s sad but it’s true.So homeowners are loosing their homes, and some homes have equity of few hundreds thousand in them. Because they don’t have the knowledge to call a hard money lender their losing their homes and their money.

If you’re reading this article we can help you save your investment and your home, just call a hard money lender now and save your real estate.